UBS Unfazed by CS Raiding Suit

The raiding suit and threatening emails that Credit Suisse lawyers sent to brokers who jumped to UBS late last year is not likely to dissuade anyone still left at CS from negotiating deals, according to two former CS brokers and two managers on the recruiting end.

They said to expect a few more CS hires at UBS in coming weeks now that Finra’s licensing department is back from its holiday break and two long weekends tailor-made for office-hopping are arriving, although there probably aren’t a tremendous number of large brokers left at CS.

“I am not aware of any additional broker freeze as people keep arriving in the branches,” said a Credit Suisse emigre at a UBS branch in New England. “I just asked someone who is moving…and he said the lawsuit was simply ridiculous.”

A Credit Suisse spokeswoman declined to comment.

A branch manager at a Midwest regional, who left UBS after more than 20 years, said former colleagues at UBS told him over the weekend that their recruiting continues unabated.

Because UBS failed to attract many big producers from Barclays or Deutsche Bank last year as word spread that the Europeans were closing their U.S. business, managers doubled down with attractive offers to Credit Suisse’s high-net-worth advisers, he said.

Wells Fargo Advisors’ executives, who negotiated exclusive privileges to recruit out of Credit Suisse, continue to say they are being selective in who they invite and expect to have success by the end of the first quarter. “If we get only half of those we want, we’ll be very happy with the deal,” said a long-time Wells advisor who has been helping with the recruiting effort.

To that end, we did hear as well that at least one Credit Suisse office led by a senior manager is heading to Wells.

On the plus-side, our CS emigre explained that moving from a shop that is going out of business makes transitions relatively easy since there are few former colleagues chasing after books of those who jumped.

“We only had two folks going after our clients hard,” said the UBS broker who left Credit Suisse late last year. “Clients told us about it, saying that they must have the brain of an ant to try such a move.”